The Adventures of Marching Band
by Watersong77
Summary: A series of one-shots telling stories of my adventures with my band.
1. The Water Break

**A/N: first marching band fic, please no flames.**

It was hot, and most of us were only wearing a tank top and shorts. Our water coolers were on the sidelines, sitting idly by. Josh, one of our two majors, a blonde, short male, hadn't been using his cooler and while he wasn't looking, Mr. Naughton had stolen it and refilled it to the brink, and carried it to the top of his 15 foot podium. We were on the last set of the show, and I was finishing off with a nice, sharp, ear busting high G on my flute. Jake, our other drum major, stood on the center podium, a small 5 foot climb. He back handed the air and cut us off with an x-shaped arm movement. We snapped our instruments down and I could hear my band members around me breathing heavily, trying to get some oxygen into their lungs.  
"Relax!" Came our director's call, and instantly people bent over, coughing and legs shaking slightly. A four hour practice, and we were all pretty exhausted. I wiped the sweat off my face with my sleeve, and brushed back my bangs, which had fallen in my face sometime during the last bit of our show. It was Styx 2012, and after hearing the last song, a medley between Lady, Lorelei and Mr. Roboto, i could feel the excitement. It was Thursday, and tomorrow, we would finish up the show in public, finally getting it all out on the field. I glanced at my friend Burgundy and she grinned at me, adjusting her blue bandanna (our section colour for that year). The dark blue was a sharp contrast against her neon pink hair, and I'm sure that's what we would all remember her for. Josh, who had been on a side podium came and sat next to Jake. I smirked. Jake, Josh and Mr. Naughton were all wearing the same clothes; this had been a little bit of trend all throughout the season, and I was starting to wonder if they had planned it, or if it was like this every year. I was freshman, so I wouldn't know. Mr. Naughton pushed the two water coolers, which each held about a gallon of water in them each, and shifted back and forth from one foot to the other.  
"I would like to say something, before you all disappear for you much needed showers." Mr. Naughton said from on top of the podium. We all looked up at him. He leaned against the top railing, a smirk on his face. It wasn't unusual, so no one thought anything of it.  
"You all did good tonight, and you're one of the best bands Flowery Branch has seen in a long time, so give yourself a hand." We all clapped, and Mr. Naughton motioned for the drum majors to say something.  
"Yeah seriously guys, we-"

SPWOOSHHHHHHH

The two seniors stood shock still, Jake's hands still up from talking. Josh laughed at Jake but was met with a bucket full of water himself a moment later. The rest of the band cheered, and Mr. Naughton's hands went up in victory. He did a little dance, and we laughed. Jake flung his hands down, shaking off excess water. He playfully glared up at Mr. Naughton.  
"I told you I'd get you two back." Jake nodded, and mouthed 'fair enough'. I laughed, another reason we all loved Mr. Naughton. Kaden, our band president, wrapped it up.  
"Okay, any announcements?" He paused and a couple section leaders' hands went up. "Okay, flute meeting, sax meeting, trumped meeting, and woodwind meeting. Alright, lets dismiss." We had a cheer for dismissal, and we got loud enough one time to wake a couple people up in one of the near by neighborhoods. "FEET!"  
"TOGETHER!" The band chorused.  
"SHOULDERS!"  
"UP AND BACK!"  
"STOMACH!"  
"IN!"  
"CHEST!"  
"OUT!"  
"EYES!"  
"WITH PRIDE!"  
"EYES!"  
"WITH PRIDE!"  
"EYES!" As usual with Kaden's dimissal, he did a little hand dance and made eyes sound like an Elvis Presley song. I smirked.  
"WITH PRIDE!" Usually, we would say attitude, followed by 'in your face', after that but Mr. Naughton had other plans. Before Kaden could open his mouth again, Mr. Naughton cut across.  
"WATER!" He screamed from the podium, while pointing to the drum majors.  
"IN YOUR FACE!" The rest of the band yelled back, louder than we were before. We fell into a fit of laughter that was cut short by Kaden yelling:  
"SHAKE IT OUT!" At this point, we would clap twice and bring our hand to a fist, pull our arms back, bring up one of our knees, and yell 'HUH'. As we dispersed, I smiled to myself. Mr. Naughton really IS crazy, I thought as I joined the woodwinds, watching as Kaden laughed at Jake and Josh, Mr. Naughton dropping down from his tower to laugh at the two teens.


	2. The Sandwich and the Ceiling

Let me start off by informing you that the people who originally ran this 'experiment' are seniors now.

They will be graduating this year.

Let that sink in and you can continue reading.

Also this was last year, I just never got around to writing it down.

Let me tell you about the band hall(s). Obviously you've just read that there are two, but I'm not on the other one very often, so I can't tell you what it looks like. The band room itself is located at the end of two conjoining halls, behind the chorus room and to the right of the large gym (we have two). To the band Room's right we have all of the hipster electives: HOSA, marketing, constructing and something else, which I can't remember at the moment. There's also bathrooms, I think. On the main hall, if you're facing the doors to the outside, lockers line the left wall, breaking every so often for doors to the gym.

It was chilly, toward the end of the season, and we were all in the hall, in a circle around our warm food. Ginger (Abby) bit into her hamburger and said something to Summer, who laughed. I tossed a fry into my mouth and chewed, watching Hope try to get her food back from Grace. Colour Guard had hogged the other outlets and I could hear them chatting away down the hall. I shifted against the wall, opposite of the lockers. The band door was beside me, the double doors wide open, ACDC blaring from the speakers. I had headphones in, of course, and Vocaliod was blaring in my ear. I could hear someone on the trumpet, farther away, probably in the practice room. It did happen to be a Saturday but I knew from experience that the band was open on all days of the week. I turned when I heard a knock at the door, and I went to go let Bethany, a fellow flute, in from outside. A cold burst of air came through when I opened the door and I sighed in content. I was never one for the heat of our high school. People all down the hall and some in the edge of the band room yelled at me to close the doors. So, unwillingly I complied. Bethany thanked me and Hope made room for her to sit. She, in turn, made room for me and passed me my food.

"Thanks Beth," I said and she smiled at me. "So what food did—"

"EVERYONE MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" Our entire group rotated and/or leaned to see Christian and a few others running towards us, Christian's arm outstretched and to the side slightly, keeping something away from his face. He skidded into the hallway, the others on his tail. Half-running, half sliding in his socks, he made his way quickly to the trash can on the other side of the hall.

"You're going to have to get decontaminated, Christian!" I heard one of his friends yell, laughing. He glared back.

"You made me grab it!" He yelled back. A couple of the people with me started laughing, knowing full well what was happening. Curious, I stood and made way over to the trash, and peered down into the can, food wrappers and bags galore. But something caught my eye. I looked up at the freshman (which we were both freshman at the time) and frowned slightly.

"What is it?" I asked, pointing my thumb at it. He grinned and motioned for a couple of the others to join him.

"Well," Pineapple started grinning, "It's a sandwich." I paused and looked back at the bag. It was old, obviously, but still intact and had what looked green-grey ashes on the inside. I could smell it, and I can tell you it was not pleasant. It wasn't the worst, but it wasn't scentless either and it made me gag a little. I stood back and wiped my nose, trying to expel the smell.

"It looks like a bunch of ashes. Are you sure it's a sandwich and not just a burned person or something?" I asked, laughing. Pineapple shook his head and laughed.

"Nah."

"Okay, you want to hear the story?" (I think his name was) Jordan asked, grinning at the trash can.

"Sure."

"Okay, well, it was back when we were freshman, I know a long time ago, and Naughton was out doing something. And it was a free day, so we were messing around and shit. So, one of the seniors we were with was eating a sandwich. He was don't with it though, not very hungry, so we took it from him." Jordan grinned full out. "We took his sandwich and tried to think of something to do with it, because none of us wanted to eat it, but we didn't want to throw it away either, so we had to do something with it. Finally, we figured we'd put it in the ceiling and when we were in our senior year we would take it out of its hiding spot. The next issue was wear to hide it. It was around that time that Spiderman got banned (another one of the kids I don't know if he's still in band or what) from the band room so we thought it would be a good idea to put it in the ceiling."

"Awww no." I said, knowing what he was about to say.

"So we put it way up in the ceiling, somewhere where it would get the head and the cold and the occasional drizzle and we left it there." At this point someone else took over (I don't remember who it was) and grinned wildly at the sandwich.

"In all honesty we had forgotten it was up there until Christian mentioned Spiderman and we started thinking about when he fell out of the ceiling and thought we'd go ahead and take the sandwich out." I started laughing.

"So why didn't you wait until next year?" I asked, still laughing, edging away from the foul smell of the remains while I was at it.

"Because, we knew we'd probably have forgotten about it by then, and we weren't sure if it'd still be there by next year."

"It's gonna go down as one of those band horror stories you hear about from the older members. Also, you're not allowed to tell anyone until we've graduated." Someone else voiced. I grinned in response.

"So the ceiling sandwich, yeah?" I asked. The group that had gathered, laughed and Pineapple gave a thumbs up. One of the group grinned at the trash can one last time before they cleared the scene, whispers and promises not to tell Naughton.

"Ceiling sandwich? Hell yeah."


End file.
